RUBAIYAT  This has been the best cataloguer I have used. Portfolio was always a PITA with every version "upgrade". iView has generally been clean and fast and reliable.

I do not use it on overall collections but set up logical collections then create .pdfs of the lightboxes and add those to the collections. Those are what I search and narrow my choices. I work this way as painfully tagging everything and putting them in large searchable collections leads to ultimate disappointment when those catalogs break for various reasons or get abandoned by the developer.

However any CS4 ai files cause it to crash which is a real shame because my preferred format is CS4 ai files with .pdf previews.

Does anyone have any better cataloguers or archiving methods to suggest?  
(Version 2.6.4)

ANONYMOUS  I don't know about the stability of IView Media 2.6.4. Version 1, which is still on my hard drive is extremely flakey, and prone to crash. Featrues are great, but stability is non-existent. I have not been able to find any information as to the long term stability of IView 2.6.4, such as exhibited by the slide viewer in PhotoShop Elements 2. I use a Mac, with v 10.3.9.  
(Version 2.6.4)

ALEXK  I've used the "Pro" version 2.6.2 for some 10 days now, and I've imported a few thousand pictures into it, including Canon and Nikon RAW images. I really like the concept of hierarcical sets for organizing images. I have created a few slide shows and some web pages; I especially like the look of the latter.

I am happy with the program so far, and would recommend it for Mac users, though it seems a bit pricey to its PC equivalent, iMatch (at $50; see qubbles, below).

Quibbles I have:

- There's no way to build a hierarchy of, say, locations (e.g., USA/national parks/yosemite), even though you _can_ do this with "catalog sets". In fact, catalog sets are a nice generalization of all the other classification tools, so why not go all the way and make the full power available everywhere?

- I haven't used iMatch on a PC (sounds very similar to iView, just better), but I'd love to have some of its features: "dynamic sets" (set union/intersection etc., computed on the fly), better scripting, database export to ASCII, ability to assign multiple "canned" classifications at once to multiple images in a single move, support for removable media. None of these should be hard to add; the basics are all there.

- major annoyance: PhotoshopCS uses "DateTime" and "DateTimeOriginal" EXIF annotations; most of the time you'd want the latter (when the pic was first shot, not when you last tweaked it), but iView doesn't seem to know about it. Minimally, there'd be an option for you to pick what iView should use on import. (I've found myself spending half my cataloging time on fixing the darn date.)

- for movie and sound clips from an old PowerSnot S40, iView seems to have no clue what the real date/time is; I haven't investigated yet whether that's a problem with the S40 or iView.

- there should be a way to keep image files and their sound annotations together.

Quibbles aside, this is a very nice and fast program. I think any media cataloging program that does _not_ support hierarchical sets (and that includes some rather pricey ones) cannot even aspire to be in the same league.

Four stars on all but "value"; I'll give them five once they are as feature-rich as iMatch (if the latter weren't PC-only, I'd use that instead of iView).  
(Version 2.6.2)

MICHAEL SIDORIC  iView MediaPro is ABSOLUTELY THE BEST.

I previously tried and bought several other digital asset management 'solutions', including trade standards Canto Culumus and Extensis Portfolio.

None of them offer the flexibility, speed, and stability of iView MediaPro. IVMP's catalog features, EXIF and keyword capabilities, and HTML support are excellent.

My library is over 40,000 photos, illustrations and video and audio clips. iView MediaPro handles them all with ease, quickly and reliably. Support is responsive the one time I had a user question.

If you need to catalog, archive, share, or process images -- nothing even comes close.  
(Version 2.6.2)

T  Good app. Nice for organizing all those pictures of my favorite TV series and films.  
(Version 2.6)

ANONYMOUS  This is a fantastic product. Very robust, definitely worth the money.  
(Version 2.5.1)

AL-R  The previous review of Iview must have been from someone that works for Q Media because I just downloaded and tried it and it was horrible. I dropped a folder of 1,500 images in it and it took almost 10 minutes for it to draw all the thumbnails. While it provides a slideshow option it offers no transition options. Iview offers many. Iivew drew all the thumbnails instantly and it batch renames files instantly. It is the most reliable and complete program we've tried. As a professional photographer I would not recommend any other program. And yes, the pro is worth every penny. The other most important feature is that you can give the catalogs along with images to your clients and there is a reader available for both Mac and PC. That is priceless. If you have ANY questions please feel free to email me!  
(Version 2.5)

ANONYMOUS  If you really have to pay money for an app like this, you'd rather spend it on Q Media Manager

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/7716

Definitely better and cheaper.

Also if you just want something to quickly browser folders with images. GraphicConverter is pretty quick and good at that and can convert into some hundred image formats.  
(Version 2.5)

BOSIE  I agree, not worth the price even for the non-pro version. Whoever built this is insterested in profit only.  
(Version 1.2)

JIMMY  iView is pretty good except version 1.0 can't make a HTML catalog bigger than 200 pictures, and sometimes won't make one at all! It says to make sure you have enough space in your folder, I do!! I don't know about the Pro version BUT IT'S WAY TOO EXPENSIVE AT A WHOPPING $90 TO REGISTER!! that is way too much for a program that may or may not work properly! Version 1.2 is only $29.95 but that is still too much for this program! I think it should the Pro version should be lowered to $50 to register and version 1.2 should be $19.95 to register! Other than that they're pretty good programs, BUT JUST WAY TOO EXPENSIVE FOR REGISTERING!!  
(Version 1.2)

ANONYMOUS  This software is just as bad as its bigger brother. In fact it is basically the LE version under another name. While this program catalogs all the media on your drive and creates huge files in doing so, It seems to have little other functionality. Why is it not possible to create simple drag and drop folders as in iPhoto? Why is it so slow? Unfortunately, there are very few media programs in this category and so we are pretty much stuck with it.  
(Version 1.2)